ctionately implore them to begin the
Christian life. All the time the choir is singing a swinging revival
hymn; the preacher is standing over his audience shouting 'Get busy,
sinners,' and two or three boys are scurrying back and forth carrying
water to the thirsty ones, while little groups of the faithful are
hovering over a penitent, smothering sinner, trying to 'pull her
through.' During this kind of a meeting which I attended at one time a
woman 'got happy' and went around slapping everyone she could get her
hand on, and skipping like a schoolgirl."

The pioneer church has not fully passed away. Its one doctrine and its
one method have still a place in the more elaborate life of the modern
church. Like the rum jug which is preserved for medicinal purposes, the
revival has a use in the pathology of modern church life. The doctrine
of personal salvation which is of chief concern, in the ministry to the
adolescent population[4] of the modern church, is just as vital as ever;
though it is not the only doctrine of the church of the husbandman,
which has come in the country.

A relic of the pioneer days is the custom known as the "Group System."
By this a preacher comes to a church once a month, or twice, and
preaches a sermon, returning promptly to his distant place of residence.
The early settlers of this country who originated this system were
lonely and individualized. They believed that religion consisted in a
mere message of salvation, so that all they required was to hear from a
preacher once in a while.

But the districts in which the "Group System" is used have grown beyond
this religious satisfaction and the "Group System" no longer renders
adequate religious service. Religion has become a greater ministry than
can be rendered in the form of a message, however well preached.

Like all outworn customs, this one breeds abuses as it grows older. Its
value having passed away, it has forms of offensiveness. In sections of
Missouri where the farmers are rich they say with contempt, "None of the
ministers lives in the country." The "Group System," in a territory of
Missouri comprising forty-one churches, organizes its forces as follows:
these forty-one churches have nine ministers who live in five
communities and go out two miles, ten miles, sometimes thirty miles, in
various directions, for a fractional service to other communities than
those in which they live. Each of the two big towns has more than one
minister